Free Republic

Meet the new pope, same as the old pope Is Pope Leo XIV just Francis 2.0?At the time of his election in May and in the months immediately following, this correspondent expressed a cautious optimism that Pope Leo XIV would reunite the Catholic Church after the catastrophic papacy (in the late Cardinal Pell’s words) of Francis. Papa Prevost was owed at least that much, since it is generally unwise to rush to a priori judgements; the man had to be given a chance to get his feet under the desk. Having had that chance, what has emerged from the Vatican...

Safe to say, traditional Catholics repelled by the liberal views of the late Pope Francis are not finding much relief under its new pontiff. In October, Pope Leo took yet another sharp-tongued and sarcastic aim at President Donald Trump for ejecting illegal immigrants from America, likening it to abortion and implying he is a hypocrite. "Someone who says I am against abortion but in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States, I don't know if that's pro life," the Bishop of Rome pondered out loud to media from his luxe Castel Gandolfo digs in Italy. Castel...

Speaking in English, and reaching a US audience directly, he reiterated the Catholic belief that every Christian will ultimately be judged on how they welcomed "the foreigner". In some of his strongest criticism to date of President Donald Trump's administration, the first ever US-born pope also warned that the US bombing of Venezuelan ships, suspected of carrying drugs, risked increasing tensions in the region.